Friday, October 24, 2008

Wow. They made Salinas this evening. The trucks almost didn't. More red tape and paperwork. I said in the very first blog post that 'we'd be the scissors and we'd cut through the red tape and say Luftschiff Hoch'. I smile when I write that. I think I knew we would find a way to do it, and now its almost here, well, I'm not quite sure what I feel. Slightly giddy, but that might be lack of sleep over the past couple of weeks. Almost too excited to sleep, like I used to feel before a big exam, or, when I was little, the night before Christmas. I feel on the edge of tears, but I can't tell if its exhaustion, frustration at the amount still left to do before I can hit the sack tonight, or simply pure joy. I think tomorrow it will be joy.

Tomorrow I have to get up early and grab transportation to Salinas (thanks Mosaic!) so that I can join the flight in. This is my treat, my few hours of peace and quiet and solitude with my nearest and dearest and just a few team members as we bring our ship to its new, and hopefully welcoming, home.

I've missed Brian (he is my husband after all!) and our contact over the last two weeks has been late night phone calls analyzing challenges there and in the office. Did I tell you we've been moving offices too and dealing with moving phones, IT etc? There are some stories and heroes there that I need to acknowledge in posts sometime soon.

It's been very hard to see the team on the road, being such total stars, problem solving and making it happen and not be with them to share the pain and triumphs. But we've had more than our fair share of it back at base too, and the spirit and endless hours put in there too has been awesome. Tomorrow will be the first time that all the Airship Ventures team are together in one place - pilots, ground crew, engineers, passenger handling, marketing, sales, administration, finance, facilities, operations etc. And that's going to feel really really great.

Thursday, October 23, 2008

Thought this was an interesting shot showing the journey so far. Currently about 1,400 miles traveled. Tomorrow, weather permitting, San Bernardino to Salinas. Then an early night. The airship has a big day on Saturday! (as always, weather permitting).

After a few hours of desert, we pass Salton Sea. We're about 30 miles from palm Springs, but the conditions are favorable for us to make a run through the Banning Pass today! If so, we'll overnight at San Bernardino.

John Blackstone and his crew from CBS are here to shoot some video and interview members of the team. Matt will be getting some air to air from his private plane. Should be some wonderful footage today.

Another beautiful morning at the field. The FAA prepared for one more flight. We have a weather window such that if we leave by 9, we can reach California today. Fingers crossed, we work towards that goal.

Here is a great shot of the team from Monday morning. The red shirts are the official uniforms for Airship Ventures Ground Crew. The blue shirts are the special "AV Zeppelin (minus led) 2008 World Tour" shirt that our web team came up with.

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

At 5am this morning, the team in Tucson were looking at the weather forecast and it wasn't good at all for flying over the pass into CA. The message went out to the Moffett team - Saturday is very unlikely, probable arrival in the Bay is Monday. I woke to the news at 7am and felt like putting a shot of something 'medicinal' into my morning tea. This would mean a large number of plans to be unmade and new strategies done. But hey, that's airships.

Slowly the news got around the team and the deflation was palpable when I got into our 'camp' in building 20 (we're camped out on folding tables while the offices are being done). I composed the 'stiff upper lip and all that' message, knowing that everyone was feeling as down as I was. And we all pulled together, started to get things rescheduled and looked on the bright side. Hey, we get our weekend back! NASA were quietly relieved, no major potential showing of public on Saturday for them to figure out how to handle.

I was picking up Brian's car at SFO tonight as he'd left it there when he headed out to Beaumont and if it remained much longer, I'd have to sell it to pay the parking fee. I got a text message. It said "We fly to Palm Springs tomorrow. Woot!!. See email". I quickly did the double take in my head. But that was the original schedule. We always planned at least one day in Tucson with the FAA. But that would mean..... we might make it in on Saturday!

It's a good job that cars are private and people couldn't hear me alternately laughing and cursing as I made my way back home. Well, it could all still change tomorrow.

Riding the airship roller coaster. And I know it isn't even remotely over yet.

(the tracking shows the short flights done by the FAA this morning for an hour or so before the winds really got high.)

P.S If you believe in such things, I was once told that sometimes you have to truly give something up to get it back. Well, we all gave up on our cherished weekend arrival. Maybe we're going to get it back....

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

The convoy is evaluating the weather on whether to to stop for at least a day here in Tucson to do some check flights with the FAA. There were a lot of thermals today, so if there is no wind tomorrow, then the team will probably stay in Tucson and get the remaining paperwork stuff done. If there are winds, then they'll pack up and head onwards while the weather is good and then we'll have to work with the FAA at Palm Springs! There's no such thing as a defined schedule with an airship...

Airship Ventures on the Web

Fly With Us - How to Buy Tickets to Fly on the Airship

Our airship, “Eureka”, is the only commercial passenger airship operating in the United States!

You can learn more about the various tours and charter options available, as well as our schedule, at our main site.

Your Pictures of the Zeppelin

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“Luftschiff Hoch”, or Up Ship!

In the Golden Age of Airships, Zeppelins were launched with the command “luftschiff hoch!”, meaning “airship up!”

Welcome to our ongoing collection of airship musings. If you start from the first post, you can follow the story starting from how we got our own luftschiff off the ground, right thru our current adventures.